30 August 2012

NASA's Kepler Discovers Multiple Planets Orbiting a Pair of stars.Coming less than a year after the announcement of the first circumbinary planet, Kepler-16b, NASA's Kepler mission has discovered multiple transiting planets orbiting two suns for the first time. This system, known as a circumbinary planetary system, is 4,900 light-years from Earth in the constellation Cygnus.

This discovery proves that more than one planet can form and persist in the stressful realm of a binary star and demonstrates the diversity of planetary systems in our galaxy.

Astronomers detected two planets in the Kepler-47 system, a pair of orbiting stars that eclipse each other every 7.5 days from our vantage point on Earth. One star is similar to the sun in size, but only 84 percent as bright. The second star is diminutive, measuring only one-third the size of the sun and less than 1 percent as bright. Here is a video explaining Kepler 47 System and it's orbiting Planets.

My name is Stefan Lamoureux, I am the president of the Astronomy Club Toutatis, Kustavi, Finland. We organize all kinds of activities concerning astronomy and night observation at our Observatory in Kustavi, Finland. Also we travel around the world to visit the astronomy scene and write about it. Welcome to our blog and enjoy the astronomy behind it!